Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3)

by Peter Brandvold

  Taber was talking in a desultory way to Silver about the pony drip his brother had died of last month. ‘Went plumb wild, and even shot a whore, though she wasn’t the one who gave it to him—’ Taber stopped, noticing that Silver was staring eastward down the street, where three men were walking along the boardwalk, headed this way on the other side of Main.

  ‘Well, well,’ Taber said under his breath. ‘Now who in the hell you s’pose they are?’

  ‘One, he’s got a badge,’ Silver said in his guttural Indian-English.

  ‘Badge?’ Taber squinted his eyes to see better. Sure enough, when the trio stepped out from under an awning, something pinned to one of the men’s vests winked in the sun. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

  The three men marched like proud soldiers home on leave, tipping their hats to the ladies, their jaws straight, the brims of their hats pulled low over their eyes. Their black boots shone like obsidian, and the guns tied on their hips appeared well-chosen and -tended.

  As they approached the livery barn, Taber said, ‘Greenhorns with badges is what they are.’ He waited for Silver to say something, but the tight-lipped Sioux just stared, his muddy eyes glinting with kill lust. He got that look every time he saw a badge or soldier blue.

  ‘You s’pose one of them nabbed the girl?’ Taber said, not expecting a reply. Around Silver, you did a lot of talking to yourself.

  He was surprised when the Indian offered a slight shrug. Even more surprised to hear, ‘We know why they’re here,’ in that flat, low, menacing tone of Silver’s.

  Taber spat, snorted, and poked his cloth cap up on his pale, bald head. He chuckled at Silver’s laconicism, contrasting it with the war whoops the Indian had given last night when, half smashed on rye, he’d gone upstairs in the saloon.

  ‘We sure do,’ Taber said. ‘Well now, I reckon we see what direction they’re headed ... and follow ‘em.’ He looked at Silver, who’d stood and was moving toward the lumberyard’s main building behind them. ‘Hey, where you goin’?’

  ‘Gonna use a grindstone ... sharpen my knife.’

  Silver was returning from the lumberyard and inspecting his freshly sharpened knife blade when the three lawmen descended the livery barn’s ramp, two leading duns, the third, a tall black stallion.

  ‘Here we go,’ Taber said.

  Silver stood beside Taber and watched the three men trot their horses out of town.

  Taber and Silver walked to their own mounts tied to the hitch rack around the corner, and climbed into the leather. They moved deliberately, not in any hurry. They didn’t want the lawmen to know they were being trailed.

  An hour later, when they were about eight miles northwest of Luther Falls, Taber glanced at Silver, forming a gap-toothed grin. ‘What do you say, Billy? Circle around ‘em, set up an ambush?’

  The Indian didn’t say anything. He just gigged his horse to the right of the oxcart trail they were following and spurred him into a gallop.

  ‘Well, goddamnit... wait for me, ye crazy Injun!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, Prophet would have turned Carlton Mack’s possessions over to the local law. But since the sheriff was dead and the office hadn’t yet been filled, Prophet stopped at the school and gave the horse to a scrawny lad with a club foot. He gave the rifle and pistol to the two oldest boys, then turned to leave, offering a wink to the pretty teacher, whose spelling lesson he’d interrupted and who regarded him with a wistful glimmer beneath mock-stern brows.

  He gigged Mean and Ugly north of town, giving the horse his head, for he wanted to make it to Fargo before dark. Following the fresh hoof prints in one of the several oxcart trails that lead out of Luther Falls, he’d traveled about eight miles when he stopped suddenly, hearing gunfire.

  Pricking his ears and gazing across the prairie before him, he could tell the shots originated from dead ahead. His first thought was of a stage holdup, but scouring the ground with his eyes, he saw no fresh tracks of the kind made by steel-rimmed wheels. There were the light, neat tracks of a slow-moving farm wagon, and those of several horses. But no stage. The shots weren’t those of hunters, either, for there were too many rounds fired too quickly, with a definite air of anger and aggression.

  Curious and cautious, Prophet gigged his horse ahead, scowling over the line-back’s ears. At length, several smoke puffs appeared above the tawny grass straight ahead of him. He moved Ugly to the right of the trail, heading due north, splashing through a slough. After a couple hundred yards, he swung west again, intending to stay outside of firing range.

  When he figured he was close enough to the shooters to glass them without getting shot, he dismounted, grabbed his field glasses, and peered southwest. Focusing the instrument, he brought two groups of shooters out of the prairie. One was hunkered down in the trees lining a stream bed. The other lay about fifty yards straight east of the stream, on the trail meandering across the naked prairie, with not a tree or rock for cover.

  The second group appeared to involve three men firing over the tops of their dead horses. Two were spread about ten yards apart. The third lay about twenty yards behind and north.

  Watching for several minutes, Prophet concluded there were two men in the trees, and that they must have bushwhacked the other three. One of the three appeared to lie dead behind his dead horse. As Prophet watched, another took a bullet in his shoulder and slumped down behind his saddle. As the man twisted around to lie on his side, the sun winked off something on his shirt.

  Prophet glassed the man thoroughly, and cursed. Sure enough, it was deputy Montgomery. The other two were Fontana and Mcllroy. What was left of them, that was. Whoever was in the trees—and who else could it be but members of the Red River Gang?—had drygulched them. Mcllroy was the only deputy still returning fire, with only his six-shooter. It appeared his horse had fallen on his rifle.

  It wouldn’t be long before he ran out of shells or the two in the trees surrounded him and turned him into a sieve....

  ‘Kids,’ Prophet groused, replacing the glasses in his saddlebags.

  Mounting up, he rode another hundred yards north, so the men in the trees wouldn’t see him, then swung back west. Riding hard, he splashed across the stream and traced a broad arc around the two drygulchers in the trees. When he figured he was about a half mile straight west of the drygulchers, he found what passed for a hollow in this godforsaken pancake land, and hobbled his horse.

  Then he grabbed his rifle and began running back toward the stream defined by the line of gray trees chaperoning it across the prairie. He didn’t run far, however, for gopher holes had pitted the ground, threatening a broken ankle.

  Walking fast, with an eye on the trees, from which sporadic gunfire still resounded, he made the grove and crouched behind a box elder, staring westward through the branches. As he looked around through the shady grove, he realized the gunfire had stopped. From far ahead came the wan sound of laughter.

  Clutching his rifle before him, Prophet made his way through the trees, ducking under branches and trying as best he could to avoid those on the ground. When the light at the other side of the trees grew more distinct between the trunks and branches, he paused, looking around warily, to make sure a trap had not been set for him. One or both of the drygulchers could have seen him when he’d ridden in from the east. Savvy to his plan, they could be waiting for him, having done away with all three deputies.

  Then more laughter rose from dead ahead, negating the speculation. Prophet heard what sounded like an Indian war whoop, rippling cold reticence along his spine and pricking the hair between his shoulder blades. Moving quickly forward, he came to the edge of the woods, then crouched behind the bole of a tree and stared out on the prairie beyond.

  The three dead horses lay fifty yards out. Deputy Fontana lay with the horse farthest on Prophet’s right, both dead. But near the middle horse, all hell was taking place.

  One of the deputies—Montgomery, it appeared—was on his knees. H
is shoulder and arm were covered with blood. His hat was off, and his face was bloody as well, as though he’d been slashed with a knife. A short, stocky, dark-skinned man with long black hair was dancing some bizarre Indian dance around him, screeching and hooting like a devil.

  About twenty yards to the north, a big white man in a buffalo coat and wool cap was jerking Deputy Mcllroy to his knees and pistol-whipping the lad. The deputy’s face was a dark-red oval, except for his teeth, which glistened whitely through a grimace.

  ‘There you go, marshal-boy—how’s that one feel?’ the big man bellowed as he let Mcllroy have it again with his pistol barrel.

  Mcllroy gave a cry as he fell sideways. Then the big man reached down and, grabbing his shirt collar, jerked him back to his knees.

  Meanwhile, the Indian was still howling and dancing around Montgomery, who knelt in the grass with his head lolling back on his shoulders.

  Cursing under his breath, Prophet raised his rifle to his shoulder. He planted the bead on the big man, but just as he did so, the man bent suddenly and jerked Mcllroy to his feet again, placing the deputy between Prophet and himself.

  His effort thwarted, Prophet winced and dropped his rifle barrel. He turned to the Indian, hoping for a better shot.

  He had not yet brought the rifle to his shoulder when the Indian suddenly lunged at Montgomery, straddling the deputy’s back and jerking the deputy’s head up with a fistful of hair. With two quick, smooth motions, he ran the blade of a big knife across the young deputy’s throat, then scalped the lad, blood flying as though splashed from a barrel.

  Dead, the deputy slumped to the ground while the Indian raised the lad’s bloody scalp in the air, giving a shrill, red-faced victory shriek.

  His face bunching with exasperation, Prophet planted his rifle bead on the Indian’s forehead, muttering, ‘Why, you murdering son of a bitch!’ and pulled the trigger. The Indian gave a start and shuffled backward, his hand coming down and releasing the scalp. His other hand rose to his face, weakly searching for the neat hole Prophet had drilled through his cheek, just below his left eye. Then the savage shuffled farther backward, stumbled, and fell on his ass with a grunt.

  Prophet turned the rifle on the other man, whose head was whipping around in shock, trying to figure out who had shot his compadre. He clutched young Mcllroy before him, shield like, so Prophet couldn’t get a decent shot.

  The man backed up, a fistful of the sagging deputy’s collar in his hand, and stared savagely at Prophet, whom he’d picked out of the trees at the edge of the grove. Bringing his pistol to the deputy’s head, he shouted, ‘I’ll kill him!’

  Prophet knew he would. He also knew he didn’t have any time to spare. He brought the gun up, trying to find a shot that wouldn’t take out young Mcllroy. But then the young deputy gave a sudden yell, and plunged to his knees, leaving the big man open.

  Prophet fired once, taking the man through the chest. He jacked and fired again, drilling another hole through the man’s throat, then another through his head. Wailing and shooting his pistol in the air, the man backed up and fell to his knees. He fired one more shot into the ground, then sighed heavily and collapsed on his face.

  Prophet lowered the Winchester and stepped out of the trees, looking carefully around to make sure no more gunmen were about. When he was relatively sure the two drygulchers had acted alone, he walked over to Mcllroy, who cursed and sobbed as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. His face was bruised and bloody from the pistol-whipping, and his sweat-soaked, orange hair lay matted to his head. Confused and unnerved, he scoured the ground with his eyes as though looking for something, muttering curses all the while.

  ‘Easy, son,’ Prophet said.

  The lad whipped his head around, looking at Prophet as though startled. Finding the bounty hunter, the red-haired deputy’s blue eyes narrowed with recognition. ‘You.’

  ‘Sit down. You need tendin’.’

  ‘Those sons o’ bitches killed my partners.’ He resumed his reckless search, nearly stumbling over the hooves of his fallen horse.

  When he found what he was looking for, he stooped to retrieve his silver-plated Colt ‘Storekeeper’ six-shooter. Straightening, he aimed the short-barreled pistol at the dead man on the ground and tried to fire, but the gun was empty. The lad sobbed hoarsely from deep in his chest, big tears rolling down his blood-smeared, freckled cheeks.

  ‘Here,’ Prophet said, offering his own Peacemaker butt first.

  The deputy took the gun and fired three rounds into the big man’s forehead. Then he walked over and emptied the gun into the Indian. He backed up three steps, gazing at the carnage all around him—at his fallen comrades—and dropped to his knees, his face chalky and expressionless. His head hung, his chin to his chest.

  He looked so much like a war-addled soldier that Prophet wanted to weep. Instead, he found a canteen that hadn’t been smashed by a fallen horse, and dropped it beside the lad. ‘Here you go, son. Have you some water. I’m gonna fetch my horse, find one for you, and be back in a few minutes.’

  The deputy did not reply.

  Prophet walked back through the trees, retrieved Mean and Ugly, then found the gang-members’ two horses tethered in the trees, and returned to the scene of the slaughter. Mcllroy was swabbing his face with a handkerchief he’d soaked from the canteen. Flies whirred around the blood-soaked bodies of the dead men and horses.

  ‘You can ride one of these two horses,’ he told the deputy. ‘We’ll lay your friends over the other and take them to Fargo, ship them back to Yankton on the train.’

  Grimly, the young man nodded. He glanced at Montgomery, winced, appeared about to tear up again, then checked himself, and resumed swabbing his face from the canteen. Meanwhile, Prophet hefted the dead men over the back of an Appaloosa, covered them with the outlaws’ bedrolls, and secured them with rope.

  When he was finished, he offered the reins of the second outlaw horse, a mouse-brown gelding, to Mcllroy, who climbed wearily to his feet and silently accepted. Just as silently, he climbed into the saddle, grunting as though, in the last hour, he’d aged fifty years and grown a ton.

  Prophet in the lead and trailing the pack horse, they headed northwest on the oxcart trail, and the wily bounty hunter kept his eyes skinned for another possible ambush. He doubted it would happen—if the gang leader had sent more than two men after him or the marshals or whoever in hell they were after, they all would more than likely have been at the stream—but it was better to err on the side of caution.

  They rode for nearly a half hour before the deputy said, ‘Thanks for your help back there, Mr. Prophet.’ He’d gigged his horse up beside the bounty hunter and looked at him sincerely. Both his eyes were swollen, but the cuts had dried.

  Prophet nodded. ‘I take it they took you by surprise from those trees?’

  ‘We didn’t have a chance,’ the deputy said grimly.

  They’d have had a chance if they’d kept their eyes better peeled, but they were young and inexperienced, and that’s what happened when you sent three younkers out after cutthroats like the Red River bunch. But Prophet didn’t give voice to such thoughts.

  ‘It’s all right, son,’ he said instead. ‘We’ll get your face sewed up by a sawbones, and you can head back to Yankton with your comrades.’

  His jaw set hard as a steel rail, the deputy said, ‘I’m not going back to Yankton until I’ve completed my business here ... or died trying.’

  ‘That ain’t wise.’

  ‘You going after them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll ride with you.’

  Prophet wagged his head. ‘Nope.’

  The deputy flashed an irritated look at him. ‘Because of how we treated you back at the Ryan place?’

  Prophet chuckled and shook his head. ‘Son, I’ve been treated worse by better than you!’

  ‘Well what’s the problem, then?’

  ‘I work alone, that’s all.’

  Chapter Sixteen
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  ‘DAVE, ME AND Sully are easin’ back. We can’t take this heat and dust.’

  Handsome Dave Duvall turned to the short, wiry man who’d ridden up beside him in the pack heading north for Fargo. Duvall laughed. ‘Eddie, you look as green as Kentucky. How much o’ that bull piss you swill, anyway?’

  ‘I musta downed at least a bottle my ownself,’ Eddie Leach complained. ‘I just can’t ride no more for a while. Me an’ Matt, we’re gonna throw down somewhere and sleep it off. We’ll meet up with yous at Cora’s later tonight or early tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t, you’re gonna be out one hell of a poke,’ Duvall warned.

  ‘We’ll be there, Dave,’ Leach said, wincing at the blacksmith hammer working with fierce abandon at the tender nerves in his brain.

  He reined his horse out from the pack, letting the group canter past him on the trail. Several of the men, nearly as sick as he from all the forty-rod they’d swilled the night before and had been unable to sleep off like they’d planned, sneered at him and cursed, their faces pallid and, in several cases, the green-yellow of a stormy summer sky. But they were tough hombres, as tough as Leach had ever seen. They’d probably stomp some more again tonight.

  Just the thought of it made Leach’s bowels roll and his head throb mercilessly. He used to think he could keep up with these boys, but maybe he couldn’t. Maybe it was time to try some other group without quite so much vim and vinegar, so many reprobates fresh from federal lockups.

  But, then again, Leach had never had so much fun terrorizing folks, smashing into homes and looting trunks and mattresses, raping women and girls, beating and shooting men. He’d even run a man through with a pitchfork! Then there was this girl he’d whipped to death with his belt, just after he’d ...